This invention relates to load accumulators of the type that employ one or more stacking wheels of the type which have a plurality of spirally extending load receiving pockets. In particular, this invention relates to an improved conveyor mechanism for conveying load items to the stacking wheels.
As shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,851,773 Kluge et al. and 4,120,491 Lang and 4,511,136 Yamada et al., it is common to use a conveyor system for conveying load items to stacking wheels which employs a pair of conveyor belts which have forward runs arranged in a face-to-face relationship. The load items are simply clamped between the belts and are driven to the transfer station by means of the frictional contact between the load items and the belts.
It will be noted that the open ends of the pockets of the stacking wheels are circumferentially spaced from one another at uniformly spaced intervals. Because the conveyor belt systems of the known devices rely on frictional contact, slippage can occur and, as a result, during a very high speed operation which the stacking wheels are designed to accommodate, difficulty is experienced in synchronizing the delivery of the load items on the conveyor with the position of the pockets of the stacking wheels.
I have found that this difficulty can be overcome by providing a conveyor system in which pushing members are provided at circumferentially spaced intervals along a conveyor system for positively pushing load items into the transfer station.